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I had the opportunity to train with Toney Waldecker, one of the few Brazilian Jiu Jitsu blackbelts that can trace their craft all the way back to Helio Gracie. In fact, I even got to train with Relson Gracie, the oldest son of Helio, the man who started it all.

I recall my own astonishment upon watching Relson Gracie, a 135 pound 5’6″ old Brazilian man, systematically beat every single one of my fellow students. It didn’t matter if they were 6’3″ 255 pounds, or if they were 5’8″ 155 pounds—he beat them all just the same.

He told us that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was created by his father, Helio Gracie, way back in the 1930’s.

Helio’s Childhood

Helio Gracie was not a very physically impressive man – in fact, he was quite the opposite. Standing at a mere 5’6” and weighing 115 soaking wet, most men would laugh at the thought of this man pioneering the world’s newest and deadliest martial art.

Helio Gracie

He was born in Belem do Para, Brazil in 1913, to an influential business man named Gastão Gracie. Ever since a young age, Helio had fainting spells, often triggered by something as simple as running up the stairs too quickly. In fact, when he reached second grade, he convinced his mother that he was too sick to continue school, and she fell for it—he never attended a day of schooling past second grade.

It seemed that this young Helio Gracie was destined for nothing special; just another human being taking up resources and giving very little to the earth in return. However all of this changed one fateful day when a Japanese Jiu Jitsu master moved to the same neighborhood as the Gracies.

Esai Maeda, often referred to as Count Coma, needed help getting established in this new city, and Helio’s father, being an established businessman, helped him to do so. As a sign of his gratitude, Esai offered to teach the noble art of Japanese Jiu Jitsu to Helio’s oldest brother, Carlos Gracie.

How The Seed Was Planted

Carlos was becoming better and better at Japanese Jiu Jitsu, but seemingly out of nowhere, his father began to experience some financial troubles. Helio and his 7 other children were then sent off to live with various relatives in Brazil, to save the Gracie family some financial burden.

When Helio was 14, he moved to a borough of Rio de Janeiro, known as Botafogo, with his older brothers. They all supported themselves through various means, but the man of the house was Carlos. He managed to pull in a sizable amount of money by teaching Japanese Jiu Jitsu to the locals at his very own dojo.

Soon enough, Helio began to practice Japanese Jiu Jitsu with his older brothers, but he would get his ass beat on the regular due to his small size. Japanese Jiu Jitsu emphasizes strength and speed, which worked well for Helio’s older brothers. But for someone of such a modest size, such an art doesn’t work.

A Japanese Jiu Jitsu throw that relies on strength

Thus, Helio began to modify the techniques he was taught to emphasize leverage and timing, rather than strength and speed. Over the course of the next four years he developed what is now known as Brazilian (or “Gracie”) Jiu Jitsu.

An Open Challenge: Spreading The Word

As a way to spread the word of Gracie Jiu Jitsu’s brutal effectiveness, Helio openly challenged every single martial artist in all of Rio. Soon enough, black belts from all different disciplines were knocking at his door accepting the challenge.

One by one, he beat them all—it didn’t matter what their discipline was, because in the words of Helio Gracie: “When we go to the ground, you are in my world. The ground is the ocean, I am the shark, and most people don’t even know how to swim.”

Soon enough, he began to capture a wide audience. Word of this unbeatable martial art spread across Brazil, eventually attracting the attention of Yukio Kato, one of the top Judoka competitors in the world.

Kato outweighed Helio Gracie by nearly 40 pounds. Gracie intended to use this to showcase the sheer deadliness of his martial art. If a 185 pound man had beaten Kato, sure it would have been impressive, but it’s not that big of a deal. If a 115 pound man beat Kato, however, this would draw some attention.

Helio choked him out within eight minutes, to the astonishment of the crowd—“How the hell did he do that?” was the predominant thought racing through all of their heads. And like that, Helio Gracie and his infamous martial art grew in landslide popularity.

Helio The Player (And Father)

As one might assume, Helio’s widespread popularity brought him ample attention from the ladies—in fact, his second wife was 32 years younger than him. Quite the womanizer, indeed. Helio had 7 sons and 2 daughters, however I will focus on Rorion and Royce (pronounced Horion and Hoyce), because they are the most integral to the spread of Gracie Jiu Jitsu.

Helio was sure to teach both of them Gracie Jiu Jitsu from a very young age—some sources claim he started teaching them as soon as they could walk. Nonetheless, by the time that they were adults, they were absolutely ruthless black belts, skilled at beating even the most challenging opponent.

The Gracie Challenge

When he was 26, Rorion moved to Southern California. For a while, he had to support himself as an extra in various movies, but he decided that it was his mission to spread the knowledge of Gracie Jiu Jitsu. What he did was very simple. He laid down some mats in his garage, and offered anyone who could beat him $100,000.

Yes, that’s right—$100,000. Rorion didn’t even have that kind of money, being an immigrant who just moved to the states, but he was so utterly confident in his own abilities, that he was prepared to take that risk. This became known as the “Gracie Challenge.”

One by one, competitors came in and were submitted. None could stand against the awesome might of Gracie Jiu Jitsu, nonetheless against a man who had been training in it since he was 2 years old.

Eventually Rorion began teaching classes. Everybody wanted to know how to do Gracie Jiu Jitsu. It started to spread through word of mouth, and soon enough people from all over Southern California were flocking to Rorion’s dojo.

The Birth Of The Ultimate Fighting Championship

Rorion, being the ambitious man that he is, decided that this wasn’t enough. He wanted to create an ultimate competition, to determine the best martial art of all time, modeled off of the “Vale Tudo,” or Portuguese for “Anything Goes,” fights so common in Brazil.

So, in 1993, he founded the UFC—a pay per view event that shocked thousands of people all across the USA, including John McCain who called for a ban on the sport due to its brutality. Rorion recruited seven of the world’s deadliest and most popular martial artists, enticing them with the chance to prove their superiority. Little did they know, however, what they had in store.

Rorion decided that he could fight in the UFC himself. The best showcase of Gracie Jiu Jitsu’s awesome power, however, would be from Royce Gracie. Rorion was around 215 pounds, and 6’3″—and although it would be impressive if he won, he thought that it would be far more impressive if his younger brother, Royce, took the gold medal.

Royce Gracie – the man who would represent Gracie Jiu Jitsu in UFC 1

Royce was 6’1″ and weighed in at 176; considering that he was up against a Sumo wrestler weighing over 400 pounds, and Ken Shamrock, a world class wrestler at a lean 212 pounds, Royce’s humble weight of 176 was nothing.

UFC 1

UFC 1 was a martial artist’s wet dream. The only rules were no biting or eye gouging. Aside from that, anything else was allowed.

The first fight was Gerard Gordeau vs. Teila Tuli; a 216 lb Savate practitioner vs. a 460 pound Sumo wrestler. It seemed like everyone knew what was going to happen. Ken Shamrock tells the story well—all the guys in the locker room were jumping around, pounding their chests, and getting psyched. “Who do you think will win?” one of them asked. “Are you kidding? That guy’s massive, Gerard doesn’t stand a chance.”

And like that, under just 30 seconds, the match ended—Gerard knocked 3 of Teila’s teeth out in a series of savage kicks to the face. The referee was forced to stop the match lest Teila become permanently brain damaged.

There was dead silence in the locker room—“Holy shit,” one of them said. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

Royce’s Victory

One by one, the champions fought. For the semi-finals it was Gerard Gordeau vs. Kevin Rosier, an American kickboxing super-heavyweight champion. Despite his impressive title, Gerard completely demolished him within 2 minutes. You can watch the fight here.

The other semi-finals match was Royce Gracie vs. Ken Shamrock. Shamrock was probably the biggest threat to Gracie, due to his knowledge of wrestling. Obviously it wasn’t on-par with Royce’s knowledge of submissions, but Shamrock at least had enough knowledge to make submission very difficult for Gracie. In addition to this, Shamrock outweighed Gracie by over 30 pounds—and for anyone who’s ever sparred with others, you’ll be aware of just how huge this weight disparity is.

The massive Ken Shamrock

Royce was extremely aggressive from the start—the bell rings, he goes right in for the take-down, but Shamrock expects this and counters. After struggling, Royce manages to get Shamrock into a half guard and begins kicking his kidney with his right heel. Shamrock stands up and tries to pass Royce’s guard, but Royce gets him off balance, pushes him back and gets the full mount!

Ken struggles, but Royce gets his back and finishes him off with a rear-naked choke hold. And like that, Ken was stunned. He had a 30 pound advantage on this skinny Brazilian man, and somehow Royce had won.

But it wasn’t over yet. For the final match he was up against Gordeau, who is known for being a dirty fighter. He eye-gouged and ear bit others on multiple occasions, and in addition to this he is a ruthless Savate practitioner. He stands at 6’5″ giving him a huge reach advantage over Royce, not to mention the 40 pound difference between the two.

The bell rings, and Gordeau keeps his distance—he’s very well aware of Royce’s ground advantage. But Royce throws a kick, distracts Gordeau, and goes in for the double leg take down! Gordeau backs up and retains his balance, but Royce is determined. He slips a leg behind Gordeau and manages to push him back into a corner of the octagon.

Royce manages to get Gerard off balance and throws him onto the ground—now we’re in Gracie territory. Royce gets the full mount, and it seems like an easy win, but Gerard pulls out the dirty tricks. He starts trying to bite Royce’s ear! Royce won’t have this, though—he head butts the shit out of Gerard and manages to get him into a rear-naked choke hold. He holds it for a little extra to let Gordeau know what’s up.

The Fame Spread

And like that, Gracie Jiu Jitsu had become a world-wide phenomena. Fighters from all over the globe flew in to learn the secrets of this mysterious martial art. Various branches of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu began to emerge as the art began to evolve, but one fact remained the same: everyone wanted in on the action. Who wouldn’t want to know how a 178 pound scrawny Brazilian man beat the world’s top competitors who outweighed him by over 30 pounds?

The UFC went on to experience massive backlash from American politicians and senators in the mid 1990’s, but it had already become a cultural phenomena. John McCain was particularly vocal against it, calling it “human cockfighting,” but the people wanted more. As a way to make the sport more “family friendly,” the UFC implemented various rules such as no fish-hooking, hair-pulling, or skull stomping.

And now, here we are today. Nearly every other person in the US practices BJJ, but don’t forget where it all started. It wasn’t always like this, with a BJJ mat set up in nearly every city across the US. Once upon a time, it was only taught in Brazil, in one of the poorer boroughs of Rio. Don’t forget that it all started when one man decided that he had had enough—he was fed up with getting his ass kicked, and decided to change things.

And because of his determination and work-ethic, he started what is now widely respected as the greatest ground fighting martial art of all time.

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108 Responses

Like every human invention, BJJ is no perfect. Its been demonstrated that even the best systems/men can be defeated. BJJ is a very good grapling martial art, but far distant from perfection. BJJ fighters have already been defeated in MMA.

One-on-one, BJJ is a great and dangerous martial art. Against two or more guys, you’re fucked. Being taken to the ground is the best way to get your face kicked in. BJJ is a great skill, but it needs to be complemented with a striking style.

Even then it is still inferior to catch wrestling. BJJ is useless in a real life situation as the whole sport is predicated on taking your opponent down and being on your back-to quote Karl Gotch, the passivity of it is analogous to a whore waiting for a customer-and if you get caught in a guard and don’t break the BJJ practitioner’s leg you should give it up. Catch wrestling on the other hand is much more effective as it is a more brutal form of martial art and has more you can do which BJJ does not have. I can tell of you what joy I take in putting on a brutal neck crank and using small joint manipulation and other nefarious things-I like to hurt people if I have to.

I also believe Ad Santel destroyed Konde Coma whom taught the Gracies and he would routinely beat Judokas for fun proclaiming himself world champion in the process.

I’ve trained in both catch wrestling (2 years) and BJJ (purple) extensively. I concede your point on the greater brutality of catch but think that argues against it as the art that most people should train with, as generally you can train far safer with BJJ. Catch is a young man’s game.

The types of injuries you get with BJJ are things like hyper extended elbows or when you get choked out (both because you didn’t tap in time). On the other hand, catch injuries from common submissions/transitions (e.g. neck cranks) can paralyze mobility for days and disrupt mobility for 3-6 weeks.

Catch is great because you learn at a faster pace with a different emphasis, one of the most important being to get off your back. Certain schools of BJJ that emphasize sport and the guard are ok with you going to your back and spending time there. In catch if I’m about to be taken down I know I should fight like hell at that point to avoid the take down, whereas in BJJ you might be ok with ‘managing the transition’ down so you can play your guard.

The best combination would be to do 3-6 months of catch at first before transitioning to a BJJ school that emphasizes top control vs. guard. Keep in mind that most guys have a life outside of training (jobs, families, and bills to support). You don’t want to leave your school limping, needing surgery but without neck mobility. Training BJJ with the right focus and mindset (aggressive mindset + takedowns + get the hell off your back) and supplementing with some catch here and there will let you train for years.

That’s a great exegesis on the subject and I appreciate how you took the time to break it down for me and went into such great detail. I was speaking from a purely self defence perspective but your analysis in terms of being a practitioner of it and protecting your body to participate for greater duration was excellently articulated. Thanks for the insightful post.

And wasn’t the deal with Santel that Japanese masters kept challenging him to back up his claims. And he beat them one after one. And when it became clear that the whole freakin’ country of Japan just wasn’t going to give up untill he fought every last person, he gave up. They just couldn’t beat him, and he HAD to move on to pursue making a living.

Exactly right-they kept sending Judokas to beat him because they were obsessed and ultimately Santel had enough. One other person who would have been scary to face was Ed ‘The Strangler’ Lewis-supposedly he only ever lost matches because he wanted to and in a real legitimate shoot fight could destroy anybody; Great Gama as well was fearsome and unbeaten his whole life.

This is the kind of myth-making that happens with the latest greatest style. When you actually look for proof of these claims, you can’t find it. The truth seems to be that Santel did very well against several higher ranked jukoka, but their were draws also including getting choked out by Itoh. The six judoka that fought him and the guys he assembled to go with him to Japan did so against the will of Kano and were expelled. Some of them left Japan to train with the wrestlers. There were other judoka afterwards over the years, but he did not beat them all. After one match with Setsuzo Ota in 1926 which ended in a draw he would concede that it was the toughest match of his life. The reality is much different than the myth portrayed above and probably in other corners of the internet.

Sorry. Catch wrestling was a carnival side show act. It is and was a sport. Bjj was and is fighting. It’s faced your “catch” wrestlers and has beaten them soundly. Only today does catch stand a chance because they cross train in bjj. Style vs style and you lose.

Try telling that to Great Gama and the like; Gama would have absolutely eaten every single one of those jokers alive. No one is disputing that catch had barnstorming and carnival sideshows in order to make a few bucks. BJJ is and was a joke and the less said about those charlatans, the Gracies, the better. Style for style would get itself pounded into dust with its insistence on going to ground-you go to ground and a shooter/hooker is going to break your leg or snap your neck.

Yes, the myth of Gracie supremacy must be laid to rest. How can we be teaching people that “pulling guard” (actively trying to get on your back) is a legitimate self-defense tactic? It’s just not logical. Notice how soccer kicks and head stomps are illegal in MMA because people lying on their backs waiting to apply the guard were just getting brutalized. Watch a few videos of head stomps and you see just how dangerous inculcating this idea of staying on one’s back could be.

I’ll go even further- for sheer explosiveness and intensity catch demolishes BJJ; with superior strength, aggression and cardio a shooter will murder a BJJ ‘player’. You get them on their back and go for guard and a hooker/shooter will happily have half their work done as BJJ has the maxim of “position before submission”, whereas catch doesn’t seem to care about such silliness and with neck cranks, leg locks, twisters, and bicep/calf slicers one can use quick, evil stuff to make their victim miserable. Hip bone laid across the face, forearm across the throat and point of elbow to shatter orbital socket-a hooker/shooter would make mincemeat out of them; Billy Robinson for example would destroy them for fun.

No. The trick is to separate them, so that you are only fighting one person at a time(almost impossible to wrestle even two people at once). I got jumped by two guys once, used a wrestling trick to shake them off me then landed three full swing punches to one guys ears as he was bent over. He didnt want anymore so I fought the other guy. He finally just left because at that point it wasn’t worth it.

you are probably a total badass and totally outclassed those guys. or you were sober and they were very drunk, or something like that. don’t get me wrong, i could see situations where an extremely tough guy with lots of martial arts and real world fighting experience could beat two or three guys he far outclasses physically and skill-wise. i once met a 220-pound muscular pro heavyweight boxer in ukraine, for example. one of my buddies said he was at a bar with the boxer one night when three guys rushed him, and the boxer knocked all three out with three punches. but again, this guy was 6’2, solid muscle, and a pro boxer with years of experience. for mere mortals, i agree with these guys that the only strategy when facing multiple attackers is to run for your life:

I’ve fought and beat multiple guys more than once. What Jim said is true about separating them. Most important is do not grapple or get grabbed, mobility is key for it. My worst was 27 guys as far as I counted when I figured it was going south, and well I beat several of them but made the mistake of grappling one and got my eye kicked in, after that I took the kicker down and then tactical retreat. The funniest of all is they found me later and wanted to shake my hand, so we got some beers and had some laughs.

“My worst was 27 guys as far as I counted when I figured it was going south, and well I beat several of them but made the mistake of grappling one and got my eye kicked in, after that I took the kicker down and then tactical retreat. The funniest of all is they found me later and wanted to shake my hand, so we got some beers and had some laughs.”

Which part? Note that I didn’t say I beat them all, I got a few of them on the ground and got the fuck out. This happened when I stopped for the night in a backwater small town and went for a couple of beers at a local bar. The locals figured I was looking to steal their girls and that’s why they did this. I was in good shape as I’d just got out of the army a few months earlier, and these guys looked like they were 15-22 age range.
I dropped some stuff in the chaos, and they came to the only place to stay in town to give them to me, which is when I offered some beer I had in the trunk.
Nothing spectacular but if I had gotten bogged down it would likely have gone badly for me. That was the point I was trying to make.

I’m seeing this all over the internets and from the mouths of bjj teachers themselves who obviously have a vested interest in portraying their hugely popular business as the superior style. Their answer to multiple attackers for which going to the ground clearly fails miserably, is no style can save you from multiple attackers, so run. There is more propaganda. They say every fight goes to the ground. Not true. They have also made “adjustments” to history to make it seems like they have the exclusive line on ne waza. The point seems to be to paint bjj as the ultimate system. Good for business. Bad for those practitioners that put faith in this. A specialist is weak in every other area. Bjj’s time will come and go once more people get over the hype and focus on exploiting its weaknesses.

The truth it´s that you don´t need to be a huge pro boxer. Just practice some kind of ring sport. By own experience i´ve beaten several times bodybuilders at bar fights and the main difference it´s not the weight, what really make the difference is that 99% of the population never experiment a punch in the jaw.

Exactly what I was thinking. You can choose to not get into fights with assholes, but you can’t choose to not be beaten up by a group of thugs, with which striking is almost the only way to go- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2qPMFijyks

Notice he needed a huge amount of space to make it work and he was always back peddling to funnel the attackers to him, making it a 1v1 confrontation. Had this happened in a bar, no amount of training would have saved him from being jumped.

You, sir, have the most relevant comment I’ve read yet about this. I had my eye kicked in by another guy when I took the biggest down with BJJ lock and subdue.
Don’t fucking use engaging techniques against multiple targets. Kick and punch, don’t grapple for fucks sake.

Cool article. I fucking loved watching the first UFCs and I admit I am surprised McCain was against it. Always somehow thought he had balls and all that, being a war hero – if I am not confusing him with someone else. I hate those clueless snobs who point fingers at others just to fortify their self-importance and gain popularity by means of playing to the masses’ inferiority complex.

just another human being taking up resources and giving very little to the earth in return

Come on. Maybe he was not very special, but most people aren’t. And yet, without them, there would be none of those resources. The real world is not an Ayn Rand dystopia.

He’s been a consistent opponent to men’s health and fitness since at least the mid 1990’s. The dude seems to absolutely loathe anything which betters men physically and has sponsored and helped pass legislation banning legal substances that bodybuilders use(d) (not talking steroids here). He’s a grade A douchenozzle.

Politicians are easy. How do you tell if they’re lying? If their mouth is moving and sounds are coming out – they are lying.
I’m happily divorced from the whole shitpile of politics and have been since I was voting age. I have only ever voted for one thing, to keep Sweden out of the EU and we know how that went.

This is still the craziest win Ive ever seen(not UFC, Pride, no weight classes back in the day). I still have no idea how such a smaller man could defeat a beast like Sapp…some Street Fighter, video game shit right here

As massive and brolic as sapp was, he is possibly one of the worst fighters to ever be called professional. Only Kimo was close, and Kimo at one point was actually decent. He was the only fighter to almost beat Royce back in the early days.

Gracie Bjj doesn´t demostrate the supossed overwhelming power of this martial art, just demostrated that “skills pays the bills” AKA a brawler will never defeat a professional figther. UFC 1 showed that bar brawlers, bikers and though guys in general are always underlings against skillfull fightiers, thats all.

A catch wrestler will destroy a BJJ ‘player’ as they are termed pretty comprehensively; the Gracies run McDojos and always make ridiculous demands and act like prima donnas when it comes to their ‘challenge’; they’re so bullshit that even the Judoka who taught them initially was destroyed by a catch wrestler by the name of Ad Santel; had they gone up against Great Gama, Georg Hackenschmidt or Frank Gotch they wouldn’t have had a prayer.

My video was more about showing how when a sport becomes more professional and ‘bigtime’ the more complete package athlete will rise to the top.

I watched this fight. Matt Hughes man handled him like a rag doll and could have broken his arm at one point, Royce ego refused to tap out so was released out of respect or mercy. I suspect the same humbling mismatch would have occurred with any of the top fighters.

It kind of shits all over the everyman dream of the average guy achieving above and beyond he had built unfortunately.

As is this blog for men, we don’t know the seeds it will create for the future.

If anything really as crazy as this sounds, this blog is for the young men and women not even born yet. It is one of the only things out here that actually stands by its message and has a point to sell which can benefit the future.

Its why reacting to people “Mad” at blogs such as these is a waste. They are stuck in the present moment and don’t see the seeds that are planted.

How can you judge a tree by its seed?

Anyway great post. Its crazy how in school I could of cared less about History but, now, I am all about it. Its good to see how things start and creates a thread from a single moment which was created out of nothing. THIS moment.

Every time I read articles like this on RoK I want to pick up a fighting style, this really looks like one of the more practical styles and something that I, as a stocky 5’7” wouldn’t be disadvantaged at.

Guess it’s time to actually buckle down and pick up a style again (I kick boxed for about a year and a half) instead of just posting about it online.

The style does not matter. What matters are effectiveness, realistic training, and tough classmates – not those pussy students who take up kung fu for health and fitness reasons. To those I tell them to take yoga or an actual fitness class. Real martial arts is for combat.

I agree, but picking a style that fits your body type is good too. At the very least, you should adapt a style depending on your build.
In boxing, you don’t fight long if you have a short reach for example. A short stocky dude would be well advised to learn wrestling.

I do think some styles are more effective than other, but that any approach to martial arts is impotent in a self-defense sense if not bolstered by contact sparring, hardcore fitness training and classmates that can handle themselves in real life violent situations.

I guess it all depends on what you want from your training. If its pretty forms and a new hobby then Jujitsu or Thai boxing may not be for you. Styles like Krav Maga are emphasized as self-defence rather than martial arts for the same reasons.

If you can find a serious dojo, BJJ, Krav Maga, and Muay Thai are great disciplines that even we smaller folk can employ effectively. Properly focused, these disciplines will teach you to maximize the utility of your body, and will hone your mind toward constant situational awareness.

Of course, the same would apply to all martial arts. In the US, however, it’s much harder to find serious TaiKwonDo, Karate, or kung fu training.

I recall seeing Royce Gracie taking out karate black belt Ron Van Clief in mere seconds. The Black Dragon, (nickname bestowed upon him by Bruce Lee himself) later declared that he was surprised that more black belts didn’t bother to take the UFC challenge. If anyone had that video, hopefully you’re kind enough to share it with us.

Their initial overwhelming succes was partly based on they knew how to counter every other style, the others didnt even know BJJ existed. Look at that boxer against Roice in UFC1..he knew nothing about BJJ whereas Roice had studied boxing and techniques to beat boxers all his life.
Today, a few strategies will nullify it, as seen in UFC. Even the best in BJJ can’t use it for much if that is all they know.

For the same reason women pester men to have Twitter and Facebook, so they can “interact” with others, and by that, of course I mean her family and friends. The end result, as we all know, is either, promotional stuff, or, as Titan mentioned in the original post, the attempt to spread propaganda, or even to mold the fighter’s persona as the organization sees fit. Even if I had the skills to fight in the UFC, I couldn’t see myself doing this. I am shy and introverted by nature as it is, and that by itself would make it hard enough. But the UFC making me use it? I wouldn’t bear it. To further my point, South Park did an excellent critique of Facebook through Stan.

Ok, so say I “have Twitter” and don’t use it. And marketing benefits…how? If they set up a ghost account for me and they post on it, it’s not me and not something that I have any control over. There is no point to the “requirement” if that is the case. Hence, why I don’t understand it.

This was a fascinating and informative article. Thanks for taking the time to write it up. I was in college when UFC started. I remember at the time it was more of a spectacle than a legit competition. I had no inkling it would become a somewhat mainstream event.

Having observed bjj become a huge marketing gimmick more than anything else over the years, it’s impossible for any serious practitioner to believe 99 % of the propaganda generated in favor of the Gracies. Even looking at some of the claims raised in this article, eg: Kato outweighed Helio Gracie by 40 pounds !!! You see clearly in the video that Helio Gracie is almost a head taller than Kato and they look practically the same build. If anything, you would think Helio was the heavier weight class…
Now to spin this tale as if Helio was the underdog, when anyone who isn’t blind can see it’s at best a contest between 2 evenly weighted fighters, undermines the credibility of the whole Gracie brand and their controversial martial art. Not to mention, some of the most disgraceful in competition antics attributed to Gracies (stomping an unconscious opponent, tasteless taunts and constant propaganda unworthy of the spirit of eastern martial arts, etc.), and the fact that basically Gracies are non existent in serious competition now that MMA has attracted worldwide attention and you see some serious martial artists competing for the titles, make this family and their BJJ debacle probably the most overrated combat legacy of modern times…

Also, don’t underestimate the power of BJJ in a multiple opponent fight – Relson recounted a story where he was attacked by 3 men in a bar at once to me and my peers. He said that he put one in a standing rear-naked chokehold and used his body as a shield against the other guys, the guy was unconscious in like 5 seconds, then he did a simple hip throw to one guy and armbarred the other one.

The key is to not turn it into a ground match when there’s multiple opponents – always stay on your feet, but remember that there’s a lot of BJJ moves that you can do standing up.

As for Kung-fu: please refer to San shou or sanda. (This was my first training style as a child).

In regards to bjj in the realm of throws; I would say judo and greco-Roman or folk style wrestling emphasizes throws much more (I trained both through high school and college). Once it gets to the ground, yea bjj rules all. I sparred a bjj fighter after my judo class back in my college club team days; I felt like a boss tossing him around even though he was considerably bigger than me (I power lifted as well, so strength played a factor in it). But by G-d, the moment we hit the mat, he would throw some triangle or Kimora on me before I landed. He also stuffed everything I tried applying on him. It was a lesson I never forgot.

Exactly. Wasn’t McCain a marine? And isn’t it the school of Martial excellence a United States marine Corp training facility for combatitives that implement bjj, boxing, wrestling, kickboxing, knife and burnet fighting?

Maeda is the ambassador of Judo, not jj. His master was Dr. Kano (the creator of judo and dean of western literature at the university of Tokyo). One would do well to know it is Maeda who not only help initiate Brazilian juijitsu but also taught the 26th president of the United States the art of judo. What we have for the remainder of his presidency today is a pansy who couldn’t throw a baseball to home plate.

Kind of a testament to both his insight into martial art effextiveness and part testament to the effectiveness of bjj: it has been said when chuck went to Brazil, even he spent time with the professor himself.

Uh, and then what? Spend all those years training just to roll around on the ground while his freinds take off with your wallet or car. . .It’s not that Karate and Kung Fu don’t have grappling; it’s that they’re balance in how they use it. Like the arm bar, head lock, or any of the other techniques to submit, but then finish it with a strike. Yeah, Ju Jitsu will get him on the ground, but if he’s got any serious training he’ll shove his hand under your ribs or take an eye out.
Other than that, it’s an inspiring story of a guy who beat the odds he was born with against him.

Fuck the Gracies. They all got their asses handed to them once every other MMA fighter learned to strike and grapple and they were stuck thinking “their” fighting style was the best.

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